Ushuaia, Argentina

Last Station: End of the World


On hold
Passengers wait in carriages during one of the panoramic stops on the Ushuaia - End of the World Station
Pipo the Prisoner
Pipo, an extra who brings to mind the prisoners who were the original passengers.
wave
Stuart Anderson, the Canadian director of Tren del Fim del Mundo waves to another station employee
steam curve
Composition of the Tren del Fin del Mundo rises from the middle of the southern beech forest.
The pressure
Pressure gauges and dials from one of the locomotives that tow the Tren del Fin del Mundo.
To Command
Welsh engineer at the controls of one of the locomotives that serve the Tren del Fin del Mundo.
Retroview
Machinist examines the rear composition of the operating locomotive.
Great Swamp
Swamp in the vicinity of Lapataia Bay
Starter steam
Locomotive releases steam at the exit of one of the stations where the Tren del Fin del Mundo stops.
Almost there
Composition of the Tren del Fin del Mundo rounds another curve and approaches the terminal station.
stump landscape
Landscape full of stumps left by the railway incursions of prisoners from Ushuaia in search of firewood for the prison
Station Orchestra
Musicians play tango and tarantella classics and welcome Tren del Fin del Mundo passengers
melodies
Musician plays concertina as part of a host band at Estação do Fim do Mundo
End of the World Season
Placard announces the Estación del Fin del Mundo, located in the Pipo River valley, 8 km from the center of Ushuaia.
Station Reading
Waiter in the waiting room at the End of the World Station
Until 1947, the Tren del Fin del Mundo made countless trips for the inmates of the Ushuaia prison to cut firewood. Today, passengers are different, but no other train goes further south.

The reception of passengers makes it difficult to formulate a credible historical imagery. We are still 100 meters away and you can already hear the tango chords played by the musicians at the entrance.

And, arriving at the parking lot, we glimpsed the small orchestra dressed in black and melancholy, arranged against a wooden wall.

Musician at the End of the World Train Station, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

Musicians play classic tango and tarantella and welcome passengers on the End of the World Train

Two violinists sharpen the melodies and struggle to follow the rhythm set by a South American Indian-looking double bass player, as two visibly unhappy concertina players do.

Passengers Entrance into the End of the World Season

Despite being given this way, in the faithful psycho-depressive fashion of Argentina, the welcome encourages visitors to Ushuaia, even if only because they are in the southernmost city in the world, and find themselves a mere 1000 km from Antarctica, they already have reason to celebrate.

As if that wasn't enough, they are getting ready to board one of the most emblematic trains on the face of the Earth to cross an unforgettable southern scene.

End of the World Train, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

Train composition at the end of the World rounds another curve and approaches the terminal station.

Stuart, the Canadian stationmaster, broadcasts announcements in Spanish and English over the station's blaring loudspeakers. After a few, the team of “hosts” makes sure that no one is missing and the whistle signaling the match is given.

Representative of the End of the World Train, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

Stuart Anderson, the Canadian director of Tren del Fim del Mundo waves to another station employee

Camila's Historic Locomotion

At the controls of a veteran machinist who is seasonally emigrated from Wales, Camila, the star locomotive of the Ferrocarril Austral Fuegino fleet, releases a dark cloud of smoke onto the roof of the building and another, white, of steam that envelops its base.

Driver of the End of the World Train, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

Welsh engineer at the controls of one of the locomotives that serve the Tren del Fin del Mundo.

With effort, the old machine conquers the opening meters of the route. Meanwhile, in the VIP carriages, the first flutes of champagne are served and the corresponding toasts are made. Like the orchestra, the euphoria on board tarnishes the past.

End of the World Train, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

Passengers wait in carriages during one of the panoramic stops on the Ushuaia – End of the World Station

The Times of Prisoner Exile at the End of the World

The short trip from the prison to the Antarctic beech groves that they had to cut down was one of the rare moments of relative freedom and communion of prisoners with the nature around them.

But the summer and good weather now enjoyed by visitors last little more than three months in Ushuaia and in Tierra del Fuego.

Many of their forays into the forest took place under unpleasant, sometimes extreme conditions, which they cursed with all the insulting vocabulary they knew, as did the axes and the endless logs that butchered their hands and backs.

End of the World Train, Tierra del Fuego, landscape with stumps, Argentina

Landscape full of stumps left by the railway incursions of prisoners from Ushuaia in search of firewood for the prison

Together, that train and its round trip, plus the cell and the exile in the back of South America constituted their punishment. And there was no point in escaping, because escapes to nowhere are doomed to failure.

The Precarious Origin of the Doomsday Prison in Ushuaia

At the end of the 1884th century, Argentina installed a penal colony in Ushuaia and the first customers arrived around XNUMX. Firewood was needed to heat them and wood to erect the buildings that would house those on their way.

The authorities thus embarked on a curious rail adventure where oxen pulled small wagons on wooden rails. Seven years later, the infrastructure still seemed too rudimentary to the governor and he ordered its replacement by Decauville rails with a gauge of 500 mm.

End of the World train, steam locomotive, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

Locomotive releases steam at the exit of one of the stations where the Tren del Fin del Mundo stops.

Soon, a non-animal locomotive would tow carriages and hundreds of convicts along the coast, in front of the houses in Ushuaia, which was then being developed.

Before long, locals began to treat the strange composition as El Tren de Los Presos. At the time, although few knew it, the role of those passengers was twofold. In the image of your offenses.

Exiles with the end of a colonization by force

Tierra del Fuego remained unexplored, at the mercy of the territorial claims of the new Argentine and Chilean rival nations. Aware of the urgency, President Júlio Argentino Roca decided to kill two birds with one stone. It was inspired by the example of Port Arthur, in Tasmania, and exiled, there, repeated political or felony prisoners.

At the same time that it was free of the inconvenience, it kept those distant inhabited places, consolidating the legitimacy of the Argentine possession.

End of the World Train, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

Composition of the Tren del Fin del Mundo rises from the middle of the southern beech forest.

The rails were lengthening in search of new forest to cut. In that time, more and more criminals had their last stop in Ushuaia. Many died there, others, rare, served their sentences and returned to their origins. Two, even more unique, escaped for a few weeks before being recaptured.

In 1947, the prison was decommissioned and replaced by a naval base. Two years later, the strong earthquake in Tierra del Fuego destroyed a large part of the railway.

From the Cruel Reality to the Extras that Entertain Tourists

Pipo uses the name of the river that, at intervals, runs along the rails. He was hired to retrieve the prisoner's character and plays his role in a blue and yellow striped prison uniform. He maintains a crestfallen posture of slight humiliation that doesn't deter tourists from eager to do their job.

Prisoner's Extra, End of the World Train, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

Pipo, an extra who brings to mind the prisoners who were the original passengers.

On the way, they photographed the Fueginian landscape including Valle del Pico and the Macarena waterfall. Afterwards, they recorded with renewed enthusiasm the preserved scene of the thousands of stumps cut by the condemned.

Only the prisoners are missing and, in their absence, Pipo has to serve.

At the exit of the El Parque terminal station, dozens of small gleaming chambers frame it. And the extra accepts his punishment that, since the famous "casserole” from 2001, that Argentine pesos cost even more to win. “You know friends, there are days when I feel like the real prisoners. I have no possible escape.” He laments us, in a humorous tone, after ten minutes of conversation.

Do railroad to the vastness of Tierra del Fuego

It has nothing to do with car parking, the final landing of the railway. For passengers' delight and convenience, the entrance to Tierra del Fuego National Park and the last death throes of the Andes Mountains, with its distant mountains, always snowy, are just a short distance away.

Demanding explorers cross it who, among the relief, discover deep lakes, flooded shores claimed by communities of beavers and jagged and dramatic coastlines such as that of the Lapataia Bay. Onward, the long Beagle Channel.

End of the World Train, Tierra del Fuego, swamp at Lapataia Bay, Argentina

Swamp in the vicinity of Lapataia Bay

Many coordinate the return of these southern wanderings with the train schedule. They return to Ushuaia a few days later, tired but rewarded, aboard the Tren del Fin del Mundo.

Still willing to venture to the opposite end of the region to visit the Harberton resort, Tierra del Fuego's lonely and pioneer farm.

Fianarantsoa-Manakara, Madagascar

On board the Malagasy TGV

We depart Fianarantsoa at 7a.m. It wasn't until 3am the following morning that we completed the 170km to Manakara. The natives call this almost secular train Train Great Vibrations. During the long journey, we felt, very strongly, those of the heart of Madagascar.
On Rails

Train Travel: The World Best on Rails

No way to travel is as repetitive and enriching as going on rails. Climb aboard these disparate carriages and trains and enjoy the best scenery in the world on Rails.
Ushuaia, Argentina

The Last of the Southern Cities

The capital of Tierra del Fuego marks the southern threshold of civilization. From Ushuaia depart numerous incursions to the frozen continent. None of these play and run adventures compares to life in the final city.
Beagle Channel, Argentina

Darwin and the Beagle Channel: on the Theory of the Evolution Route

In 1833, Charles Darwin sailed aboard the "Beagle" through the channels of Tierra del Fuego. His passage through these southern confines shaped the revolutionary theory he formulated of the Earth and its species
Cairns-Kuranda, Australia

Train to the Middle of the Jungle

Built out of Cairns to save miners isolated in the rainforest from starvation by flooding, the Kuranda Railway eventually became the livelihood of hundreds of alternative Aussies.
Iberá Wetlands, Argentina

The Pantanal of the Pampas

On the world map, south of the famous brazilian wetland, a little-known flooded region appears, but almost as vast and rich in biodiversity. the Guarani expression Y bera defines it as “shining waters”. The adjective fits more than its strong luminance.
El Calafate, Argentina

The New Gauchos of Patagonia

Around El Calafate, instead of the usual shepherds on horseback, we come across gauchos equestrian breeders and others who exhibit, to the delight of visitors, the traditional life of the golden pampas.
Salta and Jujuy, Argentina

Through the Highlands of Deep Argentina

A tour through the provinces of Salta and Jujuy takes us to discover a country with no sign of the pampas. Vanished in the Andean vastness, these ends of the Northwest of Argentina have also been lost in time.
Mendoza, Argentina

Journey through Mendoza, the Great Argentine Winemaking Province

In the XNUMXth century, Spanish missionaries realized that the area was designed for the production of the “Blood of Christ”. Today, the province of Mendoza is at the center of the largest winemaking region in Latin America.
San Ignacio Mini, Argentina

The Impossible Jesuit Missions of San Ignacio Mini

In the century. In the XNUMXth century, the Jesuits expanded a religious domain in the heart of South America by converting the Guarani Indians into Jesuit missions. But the Iberian Crowns ruined the tropical utopia of the Society of Jesus.
Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina

The Resisting Glacier

Warming is supposedly global, but not everywhere. In Patagonia, some rivers of ice resist. From time to time, the advance of the Perito Moreno causes landslides that bring Argentina to a halt.
Iguazu/Iguazu Falls, Brazil/Argentina

The Great Water Thunder

After a long tropical journey, the Iguaçu River gives a dip for diving. There, on the border between Brazil and Argentina, form the largest and most impressive waterfalls on the face of the Earth.
El Chalten, Argentina

The Granite Appeal of Patagonia

Two stone mountains have created a border dispute between Argentina and Chile. But these countries are not the only suitors. The Fitz Roy and Torre hills have long attracted die-hard climbers
Colónia Pellegrini, Argentina

When the Meat is Weak

The unmistakable flavor of Argentine beef is well known. But this wealth is more vulnerable than you think. The threat of foot-and-mouth disease, in particular, keeps authorities and growers afloat.
Mendoza, Argentina

From One Side to the Other of the Andes

Departing from Mendoza city, the N7 route gets lost in vineyards, rises to the foot of Mount Aconcagua and crosses the Andes to Chile. Few cross-border stretches reveal the magnificence of this forced ascent
Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

A Farm at the End of the World

In 1886, Thomas Bridges, an English orphan taken by his missionary foster family to the farthest reaches of the southern hemisphere, founded the ancient homestead of Tierra del Fuego. Bridges and the descendants surrendered to the end of the world. today, your Estancia harberton it is a stunning Argentine monument to human determination and resilience.
Rhinoceros, PN Kaziranga, Assam, India
Safari
PN Kaziranga, India

The Indian Monoceros Stronghold

Situated in the state of Assam, south of the great Brahmaputra river, PN Kaziranga occupies a vast area of ​​alluvial swamp. Two-thirds of the rhinocerus unicornis around the world, there are around 100 tigers, 1200 elephants and many other animals. Pressured by human proximity and the inevitable poaching, this precious park has not been able to protect itself from the hyperbolic floods of the monsoons and from some controversies.
Braga or Braka or Brakra in Nepal
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 6th – Braga, Nepal

The Ancient Nepal of Braga

Four days of walking later, we slept at 3.519 meters from Braga (Braka). Upon arrival, only the name is familiar to us. Faced with the mystical charm of the town, arranged around one of the oldest and most revered Buddhist monasteries on the Annapurna circuit, we continued our journey there. acclimatization with ascent to Ice Lake (4620m).
Bertie in jalopy, Napier, New Zealand
Architecture & Design
Napier, New Zealand

Back to the 30s

Devastated by an earthquake, Napier was rebuilt in an almost ground-floor Art Deco and lives pretending to stop in the Thirties. Its visitors surrender to the Great Gatsby atmosphere that the city enacts.
The small lighthouse at Kallur, highlighted in the capricious northern relief of the island of Kalsoy.
Adventure
Kalsoy, Faroe Islands

A Lighthouse at the End of the Faroese World

Kalsoy is one of the most isolated islands in the Faroe archipelago. Also known as “the flute” due to its long shape and the many tunnels that serve it, a mere 75 inhabitants inhabit it. Much less than the outsiders who visit it every year, attracted by the boreal wonder of its Kallur lighthouse.
drinks entre reis, cavalhadas de pirenopolis, crusades, brazil
Ceremonies and Festivities
Pirenópolis, Brazil

Brazilian Crusades

Christian armies expelled Muslim forces from the Iberian Peninsula in the XNUMXth century. XV but, in Pirenópolis, in the Brazilian state of Goiás, the South American subjects of Carlos Magno continue to triumph.
Fort de San Louis, Fort de France-Martinique, French Antihas
Cities
Fort-de-France, Martinique

Freedom, Bipolarity and Tropicality

The capital of Martinique confirms a fascinating Caribbean extension of French territory. There, the relations between the colonists and the natives descended from slaves still give rise to small revolutions.
Meal
World Food

Gastronomy Without Borders or Prejudice

Each people, their recipes and delicacies. In certain cases, the same ones that delight entire nations repel many others. For those who travel the world, the most important ingredient is a very open mind.
scarlet summer
Culture

Valencia to Xativa, Spain (España)

Across Iberia

Leaving aside the modernity of Valencia, we explore the natural and historical settings that the "community" shares with the Mediterranean. The more we travel, the more its bright life seduces us.

Bungee jumping, Queenstown, New Zealand
Sport
Queenstown, New Zealand

Queenstown, the Queen of Extreme Sports

In the century. XVIII, the Kiwi government proclaimed a mining village on the South Island "fit for a queen".Today's extreme scenery and activities reinforce the majestic status of ever-challenging Queenstown.
Traveling
Annapurna Circuit: 5th - Ngawal a BragaNepal

Towards the Nepalese Braga

We spent another morning of glorious weather discovering Ngawal. There is a short journey towards Manang, the main town on the way to the zenith of the Annapurna circuit. We stayed for Braga (Braka). The hamlet would soon prove to be one of its most unforgettable places.
Martian Scenery of the White Desert, Egypt
Ethnic
White Desert, Egypt

The Egyptian Shortcut to Mars

At a time when conquering the solar system's neighbor has become an obsession, an eastern section of the Sahara Desert is home to a vast related landscape. Instead of the estimated 150 to 300 days to reach Mars, we took off from Cairo and, in just over three hours, we took our first steps into the Oasis of Bahariya. All around, almost everything makes us feel about the longed-for Red Planet.
Sunset, Avenue of Baobabs, Madagascar
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio

days like so many others

Garranos gallop across the plateau above Castro Laboreiro, PN Peneda-Gerês, Portugal
History
Castro Laboreiro, Portugal  

From Castro de Laboreiro to the Rim of the Peneda – Gerês Range

We arrived at (i) the eminence of Galicia, at an altitude of 1000m and even more. Castro Laboreiro and the surrounding villages stand out against the granite monumentality of the mountains and the Planalto da Peneda and Laboreiro. As do its resilient people who, sometimes handed over to Brandas and sometimes to Inverneiras, still call these stunning places home.
Early morning on the lake
Islands

Nantou, Taiwan

In the Heart of the Other China

Nantou is Taiwan's only province isolated from the Pacific Ocean. Those who discover the mountainous heart of this region today tend to agree with the Portuguese navigators who named Taiwan Formosa.

ala juumajarvi lake, oulanka national park, finland
Winter White
Kuusamo ao PN Oulanka, Finland

Under the Arctic's Icy Spell

We are at 66º North and at the gates of Lapland. In these parts, the white landscape belongs to everyone and to no one like the snow-covered trees, the atrocious cold and the endless night.
View from the top of Mount Vaea and the tomb, Vailima village, Robert Louis Stevenson, Upolu, Samoa
Literature
Upolu, Samoa

Stevenson's Treasure Island

At age 30, the Scottish writer began looking for a place to save him from his cursed body. In Upolu and the Samoans, he found a welcoming refuge to which he gave his heart and soul.
St. Trinity Church, Kazbegi, Georgia, Caucasus
Nature
Kazbegi, Georgia

God in the Caucasus Heights

In the 4000th century, Orthodox religious took their inspiration from a hermitage that a monk had erected at an altitude of 5047 m and perched a church between the summit of Mount Kazbek (XNUMXm) and the village at the foot. More and more visitors flock to these mystical stops on the edge of Russia. Like them, to get there, we submit to the whims of the reckless Georgia Military Road.
Mother Armenia Statue, Yerevan, Armenia
Autumn
Yerevan, Armenia

A Capital between East and West

Heiress of the Soviet civilization, aligned with the great Russia, Armenia allows itself to be seduced by the most democratic and sophisticated ways of Western Europe. In recent times, the two worlds have collided in the streets of your capital. From popular and political dispute, Yerevan will dictate the new course of the nation.
Totem, Sitka, Alaska Travel Once Russia
Natural Parks
sitka, Alaska

Sitka: Journey through a once Russian Alaska

In 1867, Tsar Alexander II had to sell Russian Alaska to the United States. In the small town of Sitka, we find the Russian legacy but also the Tlingit natives who fought them.
Thingvelir, Origins Democracy Iceland, Oxará
UNESCO World Heritage
Thingvellir National Park, Iceland

The Origins of the Remote Viking Democracy

The foundations of popular government that come to mind are the Hellenic ones. But what is believed to have been the world's first parliament was inaugurated in the middle of the XNUMXth century, in Iceland's icy interior.
Couple visiting Mikhaylovskoe, village where writer Alexander Pushkin had a home
Characters
Saint Petersburg e Mikhaylovkoe, Russia

The Writer Who Succumbed to His Own Plot

Alexander Pushkin is hailed by many as the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. But Pushkin also dictated an almost tragicomic epilogue to his prolific life.
Unusual bathing
Beaches

south of Belize

The Strange Life in the Black Caribbean Sun

On the way to Guatemala, we see how the proscribed existence of the Garifuna people, descendants of African slaves and Arawak Indians, contrasts with that of several much more airy bathing areas.

Kongobuji Temple
Religion
Mount Koya, Japan

Halfway to Nirvana

According to some doctrines of Buddhism, it takes several lifetimes to attain enlightenment. The shingon branch claims that you can do it in one. From Mount Koya, it can be even easier.
The Toy Train story
On Rails
Siliguri a Darjeeling, India

The Himalayan Toy Train Still Running

Neither the steep slope of some stretches nor the modernity stop it. From Siliguri, in the tropical foothills of the great Asian mountain range, the Darjeeling, with its peaks in sight, the most famous of the Indian Toy Trains has ensured for 117 years, day after day, an arduous dream journey. Traveling through the area, we climb aboard and let ourselves be enchanted.
A kind of portal
Society
Little Havana, USA

Little Havana of the Nonconformists

Over the decades and until today, thousands of Cubans have crossed the Florida Straits in search of the land of freedom and opportunity. With the US a mere 145 km away, many have gone no further. His Little Havana in Miami is today the most emblematic neighborhood of the Cuban diaspora.
Casario, uptown, Fianarantsoa, ​​Madagascar
Daily life
Fianarantsoa, Madagascar

The Malagasy City of Good Education

Fianarantsoa was founded in 1831 by Ranavalona Iª, a queen of the then predominant Merina ethnic group. Ranavalona Iª was seen by European contemporaries as isolationist, tyrant and cruel. The monarch's reputation aside, when we enter it, its old southern capital remains as the academic, intellectual and religious center of Madagascar.
Gandoca Manzanillo Refuge, Bahia
Wildlife
Gandoca-Manzanillo (Wildlife Refuge), Costa Rica

The Caribbean Hideaway of Gandoca-Manzanillo

At the bottom of its southeastern coast, on the outskirts of Panama, the “Tica” nation protects a patch of jungle, swamps and the Caribbean Sea. As well as a providential wildlife refuge, Gandoca-Manzanillo is a stunning tropical Eden.
The Sounds, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand
Scenic Flights
Fiordland, New Zealand

The Fjords of the Antipodes

A geological quirk made the Fiordland region the rawest and most imposing in New Zealand. Year after year, many thousands of visitors worship the sub-domain slashed between Te Anau and Milford Sound.